Summary

Research faculty at many U.S. medical schools are expected to generate sufficient external funding to become substantially self-supporting. With increasing frequency, schools are instituting salary bonus plans to reward basic science faculty for crossing certain thresholds of sponsored research funding or recovering targeted portions of their salaries from extramural grant support. These new compensation policies could threaten the traditional relationships of faculty scholars and teachers to the university and undermine long-cherished concepts of academic values, mission, and duty.